Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[vintage79]

Classic+ HD

[Cheezits]

All Metzen expansion reputations, Metzen-wide reputation is a lock. We are so back.

Metzen Mania event CONFIRMED.

[Marlamin]

They used AI to fix the big ugly belt gap on old tabards. I wrote this as a joke but now I think its real.

Hotfixes can't affect file contents (yet ).

Knee-jerk reaction is that they’re all flight related.
But the Ebon Blade is the only one that doesn’t exactly fit that.

They all have iconic flying mounts!

Might just be for Eastern Kingdoms cup then?

[Foolicious]

Faralon they did say was going to be added & the faction hubs.
Ogreland was seen on the map for the original announcement.
I believe they said the shatt tier was cut because of garrisons(?)

What they didn’t say was the tannan tier, but the zone was in the files & there were weapons (like the legendary gorehowl) also found.

I think the ogre continent was more of an artistic way to show that there was way more to draenor before it fell apart.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...rds-of-Draenor

This is also very helpful to read through for anyone interested.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Dude it's a frame from the movie

I'm aware. Nebron already corrected me there; I was initially already suspicious it might be a frame from a film, but I ended up erring on the side of AI because I was confused by the faded side of the wings and the relative lack of dimension.

- - - Updated - - -

Knee-jerk reaction is that they’re all flight related.
But the Ebon Blade is the only one that doesn’t exactly fit that.

They've got the skeletal gryphon.

[Reive]

Mysterious overnight hotfix question for the hype thread that might be something or might be nothing, what do the Ebon Blade, Serpent Riders, Skyguard, Sunreavers and Silver Covenant have in common? Also affected were 26 NPCs of various races some of whom will wear tabards for earlier mentioned factions.

don't tease us and tell us what you think that means

[Marlamin]

don't tease us and tell us what you think that means

No clue, might just be for the Eastern Kingdoms cup which starts today-ish.

[Reive]

No clue, might just be for the Eastern Kingdoms cup which starts today-ish.

ow. hope it's something more interesting

[Selorian]

Classic stans are on a very specific kind of copium:

• Apparently, the game declining past its peak isn't simply the difference between when it was a fad versus settling into its core customers & a very slight decline is a bigger deal than retaining a huge loyal fanbase.
• Apparently, its the canon that is keeping people from playing retail, not the mechanics of the game
• Apparently, the developers who make bad retail expansions would make a good classic expansion

None of this makes any sense.

People in general overrate how much others care about the lore and canon. My friends that don't play WoW anymore don't know shit about whatever nonsense went on in Shadowlands, it's just "idk something with Sylvanas" and more importantly the lawsuit.

Retconning Shadowlands/BFA like some people are suggesting would do unimaginable harm to the game because what Blizzard is trying to beat right now with other people is bad PR, and going "oh this was all a dream it didn't happen" would make them a laughingstock.

Just downplaying the dumb aspects of them or writing around them is the best they can do. For example, N'zoth is 99% coming back, the time travel quests in DF leveling basically confirms it. It makes no sense for a dead character we're never going to see again have newly recorded lines where he's talking about how he recognizes us.

[Reive]

Classic stans are on a very specific kind of copium:

• Apparently, the game declining past its peak isn't simply the difference between when it was a fad versus settling into its core customers & a very slight decline is a bigger deal than retaining a huge loyal fanbase.
• Apparently, its the canon that is keeping people from playing retail, not the mechanics of the game
• Apparently, the developers who make bad retail expansions would make a good classic expansion

None of this makes any sense.

1) you forgot about the big exodus we got in patch 9.1. that wasn't part of the natural decline of the game but the result of a bunch of dogshit gameplay decisions and lore horrors
2) People don't play retail anymore for different reasons. the lore/story being bad is a big reason why retail is unappealing. you forget many got into wow because they loved wc3. shadowlands took a huge shit on that
3) as i said, classic+ has a higher potential than retail but it could also be a flop. imo it could never be as bad as post legion retail wow because this time there is people like metzen supervising it.

[ro9ue]

For example, N'zoth is 99% coming back, the time travel quests in DF leveling basically confirms it. It makes no sense for a dead character we're never going to see again have newly recorded lines where he's talking about how he recognizes us.

HES IN THE DAGGER PEOPLE. Come on, its so obvious.

[Marlamin]

HES IN THE DAGGER PEOPLE. Come on, its so obvious.

I see what you did there.

[Sondrelk]

Classic+ HD could push a lot of players away. Maybe I speak for myself, but there is a certain charm to the graphics of old.

There is a charm for sure, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have the option to change it if you want.

Not going to say I would play Classic if it had an HD revamp, but I would certainly consider it again.

[Revamp Man]

There was a whole zone shown next to draenor in the reveal, which was cut before launch, no?

Farahlon I think

[Draedarr]

Farahlon I think

Yes, Farahlon it was

[Daniri]

... You know that Metzen worked on every expansion up to and including Legion, right? The cosmic storyline and all that is his baby, like it or not. He wrote Chronicles. Sure, characters like Illidan would be handled better because he has 15 years of experience, but the odds of things going in a different direction are slim.

Not that I'm expecting them to backtrack on it, but the direction they've gone here in 2023 with the cosmic stuff is not at all dictated by what was written in the Chronicle in 2016.

[micwini]

Mysterious overnight hotfix question for the hype thread that might be something or might be nothing, what do the Ebon Blade, Serpent Riders, Skyguard, Sunreavers and Silver Covenant have in common? Also affected were 26 NPCs of various races some of whom will wear tabards for earlier mentioned factions.

They are reputations. So I guess it has something to do with tabards as you said.

[ZyntosAran]

MrGM is at the Blizzard HQ, so there seems to be an influencer Event going on.

[Ersula]

1) you forgot about the big exodus we got in patch 9.1. that wasn't part of the natural decline of the game but the result of a bunch of dogshit gameplay decisions and lore horrors

Pretty sure it was that 8 months is pushing it for a single raid teir. Dragonflight's raid tiers have been less than 6 months for this exact reason. Content Drought has direct correlation with subscription dropoff, not "story bad"

3) as i said, classic+ has a higher potential than retail but it could also be a flop. imo it could never be as bad as post legion retail wow because this time there is people like metzen supervising it.

Like in my first bulletpoint, people criticizing retail have this extremely dismissive attitude toward the 10+million people retail maintained on its own. They talk about the future of wow like those people don't matter. Or the more ridiculous claim, that they would stay even if they stopped updating retail entirely.

We don't know the exact numbers but I don't think classic brought that many players to the game. It's nice for Blizzard, because instead of just getting a surge of subs when a retail expansion is released, they got an additional surge when a classic expansion is released, and when hardcore was released, but seriously doubt people who didn't play WoW regularly but were excited to play classic, actually stuck around long-term. Seems like a minority portion of constant-subscribers were waiting for classic & are playing that consistently, but the majority or at the very least half of constant-subscribers are just playing retail. And that's where WoW makes its money & that's who they're trying to please; because of the simple fact that there's more of them.

They might stop supporting retail & focus on classic, if classic were actually getting more players, but as far as we know that's not true.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

1) you forgot about the big exodus we got in patch 9.1. that wasn't part of the natural decline of the game but the result of a bunch of dogshit gameplay decisions and lore horrors

this was something that never actually happened.

around of 9.1 was when blizzard said there sub base was stronger then BFA/Legion and shortly after it they changed there API which effected how sites that track it work meaning they would get much smaller returns then before leading to some even shutting down.

The Exodus was always a myth.